iFact participates in conference for medical device industry in Germany

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On October 19, 2001, iFact was invited by the Forum Medtech/Pharma to participate in a conference for medical device manufacturing and medical services firms addressing the different aspects of entering the Canadian market. The conference program covered subjects such as the Canadian Health System, the potential of the Canadian medical device market, market entry strategies, regulatory affairs and contributions from German companies sharing their experience in setting up a presence in Canada.

Sabine Kerner, leader of the Technology and Innovation Practice at iFact, covered several topics during that conference:

-The Canadian Health System by comparing the German and Canadian model

- The development of public and private health expenses, by comparing Canada, USA, France, UK and Germany;

- The specific situation of hospitals, in Germany and Canada; and last not least

- The profile of the Canadian medical device market.

Interesting findings include the fact, that the overall per capita expenses for health are slightly higher in Canada (4,363$ in Canada vs 4,218$ in Germany, OECD Health Data) while per annual capita expenses for medical devices show a large gap with expenses of 1,596$CDN/per capita in Canada vs 2,926$CDN/per capita in Germany. ﻿﻿﻿﻿

Other preoccupying finding is the deployment of hospital beds per capita: according to OECD Health Data (2011), Canada has 3.3 hospital beds per population of 1,000 persons while Germany has almost triple the number, with 8.3 hospital beds/1,000 persons. This is so much more astonishing, since overall expenses for hospitals in Canada and Germany have about the same share of the general health budget with 29.5%.